I provided comment for this series of Latitude News reports. They are worth looking at for those who are interested in the relationship of Americans (notably Scott Lively) and the Uganda bill.
Click these links for the reports:
Uganda, U.S. export anti-gay pressure (podcast)
U.S. exporting homophobia to Uganda – Part I (print story)
U.S. exporting homophobia to Uganda – Part II (print story)
The facts and players will be familiar to anyone who has followed this blog for the past three years. I think they have done a nice job of summarizing the situation and getting us up to the present.
Latitude News covered the divide among evangelicals in the United States over the Ugandan bill. This is a balanced approach I appreciate.
In one way, it could plausibly be argued that Bahati and his cronies would probably have proceeded in trying to get enacted their programme of violent repression whatever Lively did or did not do; I’m sure that such an argument will be Lively’s principal line of defence in the forthcoming court case.
However, it is also true that Lively himself has, in the past, trumpeted his own ‘importance’ with respect to this whole situation, with his talk of being a founder of the so-called ‘pro-family’ movement in Uganda and his ‘nuclear’ crowing (which continues in a different form, by the way – on his blog, he likens his ‘case’ against the SMUG lawsuit to the nuclear-power aircraft carrier, the Nimitz!). And if Bahati was going to ‘do it anyway’, why did Scottie bother to go jetting off to UG? Hmmm.
My own view is that, from a purely legal perspective, Lively will probably ‘get away with it’ – at least this time (on the grounds that ‘incitement’ cannot be adequately proven?), although we must not forget that Bahati himself has talked of receiving ‘inspiration’ and ‘technical support’ from (unnamed) US extremists. Could one such extremist have been Scott Lively (although, in his defence. it must be admitted that the detail of the Bill that so shocked the civilized world in October 2009 is not as Lively probably would have wished)?
In one way, it could plausibly be argued that Bahati and his cronies would probably have proceeded in trying to get enacted their programme of violent repression whatever Lively did or did not do; I’m sure that such an argument will be Lively’s principal line of defence in the forthcoming court case.
However, it is also true that Lively himself has, in the past, trumpeted his own ‘importance’ with respect to this whole situation, with his talk of being a founder of the so-called ‘pro-family’ movement in Uganda and his ‘nuclear’ crowing (which continues in a different form, by the way – on his blog, he likens his ‘case’ against the SMUG lawsuit to the nuclear-power aircraft carrier, the Nimitz!). And if Bahati was going to ‘do it anyway’, why did Scottie bother to go jetting off to UG? Hmmm.
My own view is that, from a purely legal perspective, Lively will probably ‘get away with it’ – at least this time (on the grounds that ‘incitement’ cannot be adequately proven?), although we must not forget that Bahati himself has talked of receiving ‘inspiration’ and ‘technical support’ from (unnamed) US extremists. Could one such extremist have been Scott Lively (although, in his defence. it must be admitted that the detail of the Bill that so shocked the civilized world in October 2009 is not as Lively probably would have wished)?